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The all-new 2014 Nissan Rogue will impress you with its suite of driver assistance tools and connectivity options. Add in an upscale cockpit and the Rogue moves close to the head of the class of sub-$30,000 crossover utility vehicles (CUVs).

To get all the safety tech you want, you need to buy the costliest of the three Rogue trim lines, and even then the Rogue lacks the adaptive cruise control and collision avoidance features of the well-regarded but less luxurious Subaru Forester crossover. Instead, Nissan offers sensors that detect children and pets moving around near the car and electronic aids to help you go around corners, smooth out bumps, and brake smoothly.

Driver assistance and 360 degrees of cameras

Most of Nissan’s driver assistance technology, other than forward collision warning, is handled by a single rear-facing camera. The camera provides blind spot detection, lane departure warning, and the rear view while backing. Forward collision warning meanwhile is handled by a radar sensor in the front grille. The Around View monitor system and moving object detection uses the rear camera plus three others: one in front and one in each side view mirrors.

The backup camera comes standard on all Rogue trim lines. Also standard are a single 10W USB jack (enough power to charge tablets as well as phones), Bluetooth, the new NissanConnect smartphone integration (more below), a 5-inch center stack display, and a vertical 5-inch color multi-information display (MID) in the instrument cluster.

The 2014 Rogue’s technology

Automakers talk about the price walk, meaning the increase as you step up among the model configurations. Nissan takes you on an uneven hike if you want all the good stuff. The mid-range Rogue SV will be the high volume seller — at $25,000 it’s just $1700 more than the base Rogue S. The SV’s $1400 Premium Package is a very good deal thanks to blind spot detection, lane departure warning, the four outside cameras (Around View) with moving object detection, Bosch navigation with a 7-inch touchscreen, and satellite radio travel services, and a power liftgate.

But only on the Rogue SL ($3800 over SV for leather, navigation, Bose audio, and bigger wheels) and its Premium Package ($2000) do you complete the technology suite, with forward collision warning and self-leveling LED headlamps, plus a moonroof. Since the moonroof is $1300 on its own and LED headlamps aren’t cheap, that suggests the FCW component costs buyers $200-$300. At that price, it could have been offered on the mid-range Rogue SV.

NissanConnect links smartphone apps to your car

Nissan is the latest automaker with a smartphone-to-car apps link, NissanConnect. It’s standard on all Rogue models and since there’s at least a 5-inch color LCD in every one, it’s rather useful (not to mention that NissanConnect works with both iOS and Android). Nissan already has the usual suspects among apps: Pandora, Google search, Facebook and texting, with more coming within a couple months.

The apps I tried worked well, although some were a little balky and then came to life. (This in the very first production models. The Rogue goes on sale November 13.) For full robustness on iOS devices, they need to be USB-tethered.

Here’s how Pandora works: Without NissanConnect, you start Pandora playing on the phone, stream it over Bluetooth or a line-in jack, and control music with the phone. With NissanConnect, all that is handled by the center stack or steering wheel buttons.

Want Facebook and texting, in the car? Nissan makes it less risky and less useful. If a text comes in, it’s read aloud. To reply, you pick from canned responses. Only when the car is moving at 5 mph or less does the text show up on the center stack LCD. Same thing for Facebook. The news feed can be read aloud; you don’t visually scroll through hundreds of messages and click to see ones you like.

They lost me at no adaptive cruise control. I REALLY want that on my next vehicle. The Forester’s ACC is camera-based, too, which I wouldn’t trust (a dirty or cracked windshield will likely render it useless; plus the Forester is just kinda odd-looking, and much too stationwagonish). Much better to have radar-based ACC.

Bill Howard

Windshields don’t crack that often. They get dirty a lot and LDW / FCW works fine except in heavy snow or instance rain. I did find the Subaru Eyesight ACC range was more limited than radar ACC, but Subaru next-gen Eyesight will have more distance. ACC radar appears to be coming down in cost. let’s see various sides try to push competiing technologies. …

I want ACC too but it’s not yet on many cars. FCW, that will save stupid texters from accidents. It’s unfortunate Nissan relegates that to the premium model almost $4K more than the mainstream SV.

Station-wagonish is not all bad. If you recall your math, a square edged 3D shape has more interior room that something with steeply rounded edges / corners. The Subaru look says “I spend time in the outdoors.”

Brandon Charles Haug

In Colorado.. Windshield cracking is an uncontrollable variable. I have a 2011 & since then I’m on my 3rd windshield.. good thing they offer glass replacement insurance here.

brenro

I’m holding out for the Nissan Wolverine.

william wipperdink

I did a google search and found no information at all on that model

John Scott

The CVT trans is something I just do not want. Subaru is also installing it on many of their models. Its very vague and you don’t get the feeling that the vehicle accelerates well at all in passing situations. Its not a confident feeling at all.

Bill Howard

Some people don’t like CVTs because they seem to perform differently under acceleration, some don’t like the noise, some know CVTs have had lower towing limits because of the difficulty of transmitting engine torque, and a lot don’t like that the CVT doesn’t rev up, upshift, rev up, upshift, etc. (though many have a sport mode where it will do just that). For most users it’s a non-issue. If you go online and search “cvt problems” you’ll see a lot of hits but that’s because there a lot of hits for every car problem. (google “1999-2001 honda odyssey sliding doors” and keep scrolling through the results, or “early ford windstar head gaskets” or …)

stockli530

You’re missing the point that CVT’s are superior to traditional autos in every aspect. That’s a fact – power efficiency, fuel efficiency, and reliability. The reason people don’t feel confident with them is because they are unfamiliar with them… drive one for a while and you get used to them. Eventually you’ll even prefer them to traditional automatics and then come on the comments sections of pages like this and yap back at people complaining at CVTs.

Nick Basso

Bottom line, when it takes TWO FULL SECONDS hesitation from mashing the pedal to the floor to the car actually accelerating, that is just dangerous as you will never be able to avoid an accident or pass quickly. That has been my experience with several CVTs including Nissan and Subaru.

naren

Don’t agree. Too much noise and is like driving with a slipping clutch. It is also cheaper to manufacturer. Also nissan owns jatco and has been trying to have the other manufactures use them. I

Jim Dawkins

All that and still a paltry 170hp 4 cylinder. heck even the Honda CRV has more HP. Expected more from Nissan.

Bill Howard

Yeah, 200 hp would be nicer. The 170 is more enough for city and hghway driving. Learn to live your live w/o passing on 2 lane roads.

Jim Dawkins

Yeah Id consider one of these if it had an optional 6. Doesn’t need to be the beefiest thing in the world. Just a more fuel efficient 6 with about 200hp.

Bill Howard

Sometimes a vehicle is engineered to have room only for a four-cylinder and can’t take the length or width of a six. Hyundai did that with the current Sonata – 4-cyl engine bay only – and that’s part of the reason why highway mpg is high 30s. But there is room for a turbo four in the Sonata and Nissan perhaps could do that as well.

Ray C

Nice features, but I still don’t want one. I don’t really want a truck, and I’ve never really like the Rouges.

I am not sure why you didn’t re-read Ray C’s post first: “I’ve never really like the Rouges.” See, that was a play on the misspelling.

stockli530

I think Nissan did a fantastic job with the new Rogue. Very, very well executed.

Mark Chapman

The 14 Nissan Rogue has a Forward Collision Warning system, wouldn’t that be a collision avoidance system? It also reaches its maximum power band at 6k rpm versus most in its class at 7k rpm thus giving it quicker acceleration off the line thus negating the lower horse power. The CVT transmission has now been coded to produce a sound at above 50% acceleration giving the idea it is shifting. The sound is nothing like a wine of a typical 4 cylinder and gives the occupants a sporty feel. It is also coupled with many class exclusive features such as Active Ride Control, Active Trace Control, and Active Engine Braking all of which produce superior ride quality to anything else in its class. Do yourself a favor and go test drive one when it comes out. You will not be disappointed.

Jonathan Morales

I think they did an overall good job with 2014 Rogue. The only part where they could use improvement is in creating more space for the 3rd row. I do understand that it’s just for children but the added space would make it easier to access. For those in South Jersey, who want to see a 2014 Rogue in person, check out http://www.admiralnissan.com/

william wipperdink

try and get a fully loaded Rogue ! YOU CAN’T !!!!!! you have to order it and wait 4 months !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
don’t believe me, call your nissan dealer and tell them you want the SL with the premium package (that gives you all the safety systems)
they will tell you there are NONE available !

Erin

One thing not mentioned in any review is the fact that you have to power on and move your windshield wipers in order to flip them up right. So that they don’t hit the hood of your car. This is something I’ve recently come across and find extremely annoying. Come winter I foresee a ton of cursing. I just bought a Rogue and discovered this with its first bath.

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